Suspected MH370 wreckage arrives in Paris

Wreckage believed to be a part of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, arrived here on Saturday.

pic: www.ctvnews.ca

The piece of wreckage – known as a flaperon, part of an aircraft’s wing that helps control its speed and banking angle – arrived at Paris’ Orly airport at 6.17 am local time on Saturday on an Air France flight from the island of Reunion where it was discovered by a beach cleaner on Wednesday.

From Paris, it will be transported to a defence ministry laboratory in the southwestern city of Toulouse where it will be analysed whether it is a part of the aircraft which went missing enroute from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 people on board, The Guardian reported.

A preliminary report could come as early as next week, a source close to the French investigation said.

An investigating source told CNN that Boeing engineers have seen a part number — 10-60754-1133 — in photos of the component. A Boeing parts supplier confirmed the number was on a seal associated with the Boeing 777.

Images of the debris appear to match schematic drawings for the right-wing flaperon from a 777.

Teams in Reunion have continued to search the stretch of coast where the debris was found.

The Malaysian government on Friday said that Malaysia Airlines had confirmed that the flaperon was from a Boeing 777 and that investigators were now “moving close to solving the mystery of MH370”.

Abdul Aziz Kaprawi, the deputy transport minister, said the wreckage could be “the convincing evidence that MH370 went down in the Indian Ocean”. (IANS)